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    Sidetracked
    Sidetracked
    Sidetracked
    Ebook571 pages10 hours

    Sidetracked

    By Henning Mankell and Steven T. Murray

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A demented killer is on the warpath and only Wallander can stop him: “Mankell at his best . . . If you haven’t bought Sidetracked, do so ASAP” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
     
    Inspector Kurt Wallander’s long-anticipated vacation plans are interrupted by two horrific deaths: the self-immolation of an unidentified young woman and the brutal murder of the former minister of justice. As the police struggle to piece together the few clues they have, the killer strikes again and again. What connection is there between a retired minister of justice, a successful art dealer, and a common petty thief? Why does the killer scalp his victims? And could there be some connection between the young woman’s suicide and the murders?
     
    Sidetracked, winner of the Best Crime Novel of the Year in Sweden, is an outstanding entry in the series that inspired the BBC program Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. Mankell, called “the King of Crime” by the Economist, infuses police procedural with a searing critique of contemporary society, from the disintegration of the family and the exploitation of women to corruption and scandal at the highest levels of government.
     
    “Connoisseurs of the police procedural will tear into this installment like the seven-course banquet it is.” —Kirkus Reviews
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 1, 1999
    ISBN9781595586162
    Sidetracked

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    Reviews for Sidetracked

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      I don't quite get the rave reviews Mankell has earned. Certainly this was a competent detective story, but I don't think it leapt to the front, or was better than, say, the Peter Robinson's books. Mankell is certainly cashing in on Stieg Larsson's posthumous fame. Altogether, quite a decent tale, but not extraordinary in any way.
    • 4/5
      This novel finds Inspector Wallander back to his Swedish homeland, caught in the middle of a typical case -- at least typical for Swdish crime fiction. The ghastly suicide of a young girl opens the way to a trail of murders in which the victims are scalped. Important men in high places are involved (negatively, of course) but is this a series of revenge killings, or a simple form of madness. The suspense keeps the pages turning, though the characterization is perhaps a little weaker than in some of the other novels.
    • 4/5
      #5 in the Kurt Wallander series, it is time for our favorite detective to take a much-needed vacation. However, summer fun has to be put on hold as Wallander is called out to a farm where a girl has been loitering in the fields. As he goes out to talk to her, she pours gasoline all over herself and lights a match. Not long afterwards, there's a murder in which the former Minister of Justice has his skull sliced in two by an axe. And if those were the only two crimes, maybe Wallander could go have some fun, but alas, it is not to be, as the body count goes higher. We know who the killer is not far into the story, but that's okay. The real story is about Wallander and his team trying to figure out the connections between all of the victims -- and how Wallander gets a bit "sidetracked" along the way for various reasons, not all having to do with the crime, preventing him at times from seeing obvious connections that may have helped him solve the crimes earlier, possibly saving lives. The story is more about the toll that the crimes take on Wallander and on the rest of the team. As always, Mankell writes superbly -- the characterizations are excellent, the inner turmoil of Wallander is so palpable you could reach out and touch it. I would definitely recommend this one. If you're following the series in order, you're going to want to continue; if you've perhaps seen the PBS production and are thinking of reading this one, do so, but do not make it the first Wallander you read. You will miss way too much in terms of Wallander's character development. I'd definitely recommend it for readers of Scandanavian mysteries and for those who perhaps want something a bit beyond what's new on the shelves today.
    • 4/5
      I first came across Inspector Wallander through the BBC TV series starring Kenneth Branagh as the Swedish Detective.The novel was an excellent read on a warm weekend and gives a person not familiar with Sweden an insight into the people and the country.I give this book a review of 4 stars.
    • 4/5
      Only took me three months to read this. It's a great book, but I have only narrow periods of personal reading time.
    • 4/5
      Another great Wallander story, although quite a dark one indeed and not for the squeamish. Definitely a page-turner, though, and very hard to put down.
    • 4/5
      Kurt Wallander is a dedicated, over-worked, sleep deprived police officer confronted with a horrific series of crimes. Someone is brutally killing people with an ax and then taking scalps. Wallander is outraged that this type of crime is happening in Sweden (in the States, yes, but not his country) and he and his colleagues bemoan the fate of their country, fearing it is slipping into savagery.

      Mankell is expert at creating a highly believable setting and cast of characters. He captures the mood of exhausted, over-worked police officers struggling with a mass of information in which a few clues are buried. He has honed "angst" to a fine art, almost to fine as there are times when the misery and exhaustion of his characters almost makes you want to put the book down for fear of drowning in depression.

      What I liked best about Sidetracked is that it has a very strong logic. The clues take a while to be discovered, but they do build a logical picture. The villain is what he is because of what has happened to him and he does what he does within a logical set of behaviors that fit his twisted and insane mental framework.

      I'm reading my second Mankell/Wallander book and liking it as well. For those who like police procedurals.
    • 3/5
      When I started this police procedural, it struck me as too gloomy to read just then, and I put it aside for a while. When I picked it up again, it felt just right.Someone with an ax is killing men in Wallender's precinct. The reader sees the murderer and the murders, and comes to know the reason for these horrific crimes, so the story is how Wallender and his team come to the same knowledge. Mankell sidetracks the reader, briefly, by letting us see another side to the crime, one that Wallender doesn't even think of until late in the book, even though he's seen the results of that crime. So Wallender is sidetracked within the story as well. Unlike my last read, where I was practically shouting at the protagonist to wake up to what was going on, this read showed just how hard it is to see the pieces of a pattern and then put them together. I pulled for Wallender and the team to put those pieces in the right order, and in time. When that happens, it is a most satisfying conclusion. Four stars for this one.
    • 4/5
      Although I find the Wallander books on the over-long side in general, this particular one kept the attention and had a strong plot and characterisation. The best of the series so far.
    • 5/5
      Loved this book. Great mystery and suspense.
    • 5/5
      A very enjoyable and surprising read.
    • 4/5
      Kurt Wallender is the Swedish detective created by Henning Mankell. All Mankell's books are absorbing.
    • 4/5
      Another great Kurt Wallander mystery. I read Sidetracked out of order but I don't think it made a difference. The grizzly story line about a 14 year old serial murderer who scalps his victims along with outlying prostitution rings holds the reader captive. With each book Mankell reveals more about the personal life of Detective Kurt Wallander. Wallander continues to pursue a relationship with Baiba, the widow of a Latvian police officer whom he befriended in Dogs of Riga; he starts to confide more in his female colleague at work, Ann-Britt Hoglund; and his daughter Linda is starting to spend more time with him. At the end of the book Wallander is heading to Rome to spend a week with his father who is close to 80.
    • 3/5
      Dick Hill did a good job with the narration but I didn't like this translation as much as the one in the Kindle edition. Since the two weren't the same as I had expected, I ended up opting to read the Kindle book for most of the time.I did like the Prologue, which was not included in the Kindle edition for some reason.
    • 4/5
      Sidetracked is a very good police procedural by a foreign author with a great reputation. I've only read a couple of Mankell's novels and have found them to be workmanlike but somewhat depressing. His main character, Wallander, tends to give off a rather downbeat vibe- at least to me. Sidetracked is early in the Wallander series and it wasn't quite as depressing, although the subject matter certainly was.

      Initially, Wallander is asked to visit a farmer in a nearby village who had spotted a young lady acting strangely in one of his fields. The detective happens to be present as she immolates herself. Although it's an obvious suicide, nothing is known of the young lady, so Wallander begins the process of trying to identify her. In the meantime, there's a serial killer on the loose with a strange fetish or two. Eventually, the cases are solved. Did they converge? You need to read the book to find out....

      The writing in Sidetracked is solid, but definitely uninspired. I'm sure the translation has quite a bit to do with that. The plot was organized very well and the ending was believable. The investigative work seemed competent, but I find myself questioning some of the decisions and pace. I've probably read too many American mysteries and watched too much TV. I didn't think the characters were particularly well-developed; I may have missed it, but I can't recall a physical description being given of any of the police officers working on the case. I like to re-create the action from the book in my mind and that's tough to do when you have no idea what the investigators are supposed to look like.

      One persistent issue I had with the procedural part of the novel was that Wallander kept noticing details related to the case and coming 'this close' to making a significant discovery, but not making it. It had to have happened at least a half-dozen times. Of course, when he finally does put two and two together, he identifies a key that unlocks the case. I know that missing out on identifying relationships between details probably happens a lot in real life, but the way it was mentioned in the story made it appear that Wallander was a little scatterbrained.

      I'm a sucker for procedurals and Sidetracked is a good one. Wallander may not be Reacher and Mankell isn't Lee Child by any means, but the book is well done and it's worth the effort to see how a complex case is handled by the Swedes.
    • 4/5
      In which there is an ax-murderer -- the stuff of horror stories. I thought this Wallander particularly good, as it showed aspects of investigation and the criminal mind that often are glossed over on those ever famous TV shows. Someone's committing horrific murders, but because Mankell takes the reader into the murderer's mind, we can see he actually is doing this out of love; he thinks he is doing something to help someone. The tedium of putting together the tiniest of clues and hunches is well portrayed (without actually being tedious to the reader.) And then there's the personal interactions: Wallander's growing relationship with his daughter, and with his sweetheart, Biba (once again, entirely by phone, since she lives elsewhere). But the one that clenched its fist around my heart is the relationship with Wallander and his father, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. At one point, in a discussion with a colleague, comes the comment that you never can escape your parents -- though at some point in time, the relationship switches, and you parent them. So very true. And I hope that when the time comes for me, I'm not a troublesome child to my own offspring.
    • 4/5
      Excellent, complex, well-paced mystery with great characters and beautiful settings.Very readable!
    • 3/5
      Henning Mankell writes entertaining and good mysteries. Kurt Wallander, the protagonist in these mystery series, is a 40 something cop in Southern Sweden. The books follow the same formula, which can get tiring if you read another Kurt Wallander mystery shortly after another one. But it's a good book to read if you're in the mood to be hooked and read without paying to much attention. Sidetrack keeps you curious and interested.
    • 4/5
      Excellent mystery novel translated from Swedish.It was Svanberg who taught me to be a journalist. He used to say that there were two kinds of reporters. 'The first kind digs in the ground for the truth. He stands down in the hole shoveling out dirt. But up on top there's another man, shoveling the dirt back in. There's always a duel going on between these two. The fourth estate's eternal test of strength for dominance. Some journalists want to expose and reveal things, others run errands for those in power and help conceal what's really happening.' p. 94-5"
    • 5/5
      A girl sets fire to herself in the middle of a field of rape. A series of quite horrific murders occur in which the victim is scalped. Inspector Wallender investigates both cases and finds himself at a loss to discover just who is the perpetrator of an increasingly vicious and bloodthirsty series of killings.
    • 4/5
      Wallander tracks down a serial killer. The same great characters, great plot, and brooding Scandinavian atmosphere--even though this takes place in the summertime! On to the next Wallander mystery . . .
    • 4/5
      Inspector Kurt Wallander investigates the deaths of 4 men in Ystad, Sweden, and it doesn't take long to figure out that there is a serial killer on the loose who thinks he is channeling Geronimo, complete with scalpings. Kurt Wallander is a great character, though not as deep nor as flawed as Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole. In this story, Wallander and his team make several false starts, getting sidetracked. It seems that he never realizes that he and his daughter have been slated as sacrifices by the killer. A good read, but I wasn't thrilled with Dick Hill as the narrator in this one.
    • 3/5
      Mankell's #5 Wallender is well written from a crime perspective. That makes it slightly difficult to follow as it sometimes gets "sidetracked" and wanders. The twisty part is what makes it fun. I'll look for another Wallender after awhile.
    • 4/5
      One of my favorite authors. Il like his method of staying with the story and not complicating things with too many side issues or characters.
    • 5/5
      READ IN DUTCH

      Sidetracked was one of my favorite Wallander books, most of all because I found it was very compelling. It has all the things we have come to expect from Scandinavian literature, gloomy flawed police officers and social criticism. Mixed with this is a murder investigation that kept the pace flowing. I liked the Wallander series in general, but this one is a personal favorite.
    • 4/5
      The only thing outgrageous was the killer and they usually are. Otherwise it was driven by the dogged approach of Wallendar w not too much personal stuff getting in the way. Very well written. If the kid and the girl would hsve goten away at the end it would have made a great Swedish ending. Forget Wallendar ad get Logar. Happened too quick after the drawn out book. He must have been ready to end it.
    • 4/5
      It is summer and the thoughts of the police in Ystad are turning to their holidays when Kurt Wallander is called to an ostensibly harmless trespass by a young girl in a rapeseed field (important as it symbolises Skåne for the time of year). Before his shocked eyes she suicides horrifically and as he deals with this particularly distressful event it is overtaken by an even more disturbing murder of a former high level politician. When there is a second similar murder a few days later it is feared a serial killer is at work and Wallander and his team begin a dour struggle to apprehend him before he murders again.Sidetracked is the name of this book, and throughout the investigation, sidetracked is what Kurt Wallander feels as the body count rises and the answers remain elusive. Amongst all this mounting suspense the author adds his usual social commentary, this time on family, power, corruption and the exploitation of innocents; using these almost as an explanation for the genesis of a psychotic mind.Amidst this rapid–paced, high-octane plot the humanity and the reality of the characters are abundant, emphasised by the extremes of everyday incidents of social interactions with unexpected personal tragedies. While seemingly helpless to avert another horrendous murder, short-staffed and overworked, Kurt Wallander deftly guides his team, and this story, to a satisfying conclusion – and in doing so enhances his already growing reputation.In my mind he deserves it. This book is sharp, shrewd and socially savvy and so is Inspector Wallander – I hope he enjoys his holiday as much as I enjoyed this book!
    • 5/5
      Midsummer approaches and Kurt Wallander clears his desk and prepares to set off on holiday with the new woman in his life, hoping that his wayward daughter and his ageing father will cope without him. But Wallander's plans are ruined when a girl douses herself in petrol and sets herself alight as he looks on, powerless to stop her. One, and then another, and then another, vicious murder - none with any apparent motive - shatter the tranquillity of the Swedish province of Skåne. As the temperature rises and the tension mounts, Wallander's search for the identity of the girl and the serial killer will throw him and the people he loves most into mortal danger.
    • 4/5
      Sidetracked by Henning Mankell; (4*)Kurt Wallander, the melancholy detective in Henning Mankell's Swedish police procedurals, takes it personally when a crime is committed on his turf. In Sidetracked the work of a serial killer who takes the lives of his victims with an ax and takes their scalps as trophies throws him into another depression. He feels great sorrow as he realizes that a foreign kind of violence has now struck in Ystad, his turf & hometown.The author observes local police routines in detail, while taking a parallel path to follow the insane logic and precise methods of the killer. But it is Wallander's anguished voice that really sucks us in. While all of Sweden is following World Cup soccer and everyone is preparing for their summer holiday, this cop can't get over the girl who torched herself in a farmer's field. Brooding on the alienation of the young, the breaking down of the family unit and the loneliness that attends this breakdown of modern society, our philosophical hero vows to make it up to the coming generation while he still can.I continue to enjoy this series.
    • 5/5
      Superb, at every level. This is a tense book where we have met the killer in the first pages, and we know one of the victims, and soon after the first ritual murder is done, we have some idea what its all about. But hero Kurt Wallander doesn't, and we watch as he leads an investigation that leaves few clues as each gory killing is called into the police station. We know before he knows, and its like the movie where you yell at the hero, "Look behind the door, look!!!!!!!" Rich detail, incredibly good pacing, with only one inauthentic moment, very late in the book. Really sucked me in...and I could not put it down.


      One ed error, where "man" and "woman" are reversed as Wallander goes into a man's apartment expecting to see a woman lover, and finds a man lover instead. Or am i reading it wrongly?

    Book preview

    Sidetracked - Henning Mankell

    Skåne 21—24 June 1994

    Chapter One

    Before dawn he started his transformation.

    He had planned everything meticulously so that nothing could go wrong. It would take him all day, and he didn’t want to risk running out of time. He grasped the first paintbrush and held it in front of him. From the cassette player on the floor he could hear the tape of drum music that he had prepared. He looked at his face in the mirror. Then he drew the first black lines across his forehead. He noticed that his hand was steady. So he wasn’t nervous, at least. Even though this was the first time he had actually put on his war paint. Until this moment it had been merely an escape, his way of defending himself against all the injustices he was continually subjected to. He now went through the great transformation in earnest. With each stroke he painted on his face, he seemed to be leaving his old life behind. There was no more turning back. On this very evening the game would be over for good, and he would go out into the war, where people would actually have to die.

    The light in the room was very bright. He set up the mirrors in front of him precisely, so that the light didn’t glare in his eyes. When he had come into the room and locked the door behind him, he started by checking one last time that he hadn’t forgotten anything. But everything was where it was supposed to be. The well-cleaned brushes, the little porcelain cups of paint, the towels and water. Next to the little lathe, his weapons lay in rows on a black cloth: the three axes, the knives of various lengths, and the spray cans. This was the only decision he still hadn’t made. Before sundown he would have to choose which of these weapons to take with him. He couldn’t take them all. But he knew that the decision would resolve itself once he had begun his transformation.

    Before he sat down on the bench and started to paint his face, he touched the edges of his axes and knives with his fingertips. They couldn’t have been sharper. He couldn’t resist the temptation to press a little harder on one of the knives with his fingertip. At once he started to bleed. He wiped his finger and the knife edge with a towel. Then he sat down in front of the mirrors.

    The first strokes on his forehead had to be black. It was as if he were slicing two deep cuts, opening his brain, and emptying out all the memories and thoughts that had followed him all his life, tormenting him and humiliating him. Afterwards he would continue with the red and white stripes, the circles, the squares, and at last the snakelike designs on his cheeks. Not a bit of his white skin should be visible. And then the transformation would be complete. What was inside him would be gone. He would be resurrected in the guise of an animal, and he would never speak like a human being again. He would even cut out his own tongue if he had to.

    The transformation took him all day. Just after six in the evening he was done. By then he had also decided to take along the largest of the three axes. He stuck the shaft into the thick leather belt he had fastened around his waist. The two knives were already there in their sheaths. He looked around the room. He had forgotten nothing. He stuffed the spray cans into the inside pockets of his jacket.

    One last time he looked at his face in the mirror. He shuddered. Then he carefully pulled his motorcycle helmet over his head, turned off the light, and left the room barefoot, just as he had come in.

    At five minutes past nine Gustaf Wetterstedt turned down the sound on his TV and phoned his mother. It was a ritual he always followed. Ever since he had retired as the minister of justice more than twenty-five years earlier and left behind all his political dealings, he had watched the news on TV with repugnance and distaste. He couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he was no longer involved. During his many years as minister, a man in the absolute center of the public eye, he had appeared on TV at least once a week. He had seen to it that each appearance was meticulously copied from film to video by a secretary. Now the tapes stood in his study, and they covered a whole wall. Once in a while he watched them again. For him it was a source of continual satisfaction to see that never once in all those years as minister of justice had he lost his composure in the face of an unexpected or trick question from a malicious reporter. With a feeling of unbounded contempt he could still recall how many of his colleagues had lived in fear of TV reporters. Far too often they would start stammering and get entangled in contradictions that they never could manage to straighten out. But that had never happened to him. He was a man no one could trap. The reporters had never managed to beat him. Nor had they ever discovered his secret.

    He turned on his TV at nine to see the top stories. Then he turned down the sound. He pulled over the telephone and called his mother. She had given birth to him when she was still very young. Now she was ninety-four years old, with a clear mind and full of untapped energy. She lived alone in a big apartment in Stockholm’s Old Town. Each time he lifted the receiver and dialed the number he hoped she wouldn’t answer. Since he was over seventy years old himself he had begun to fear that she would outlive him. There was nothing he wanted more than for her to die. Then he’d be left alone. He wouldn’t have to call her anymore, and soon he’d forget what she even looked like.

    The telephone rang on the other end. He watched the silent anchorman. After the fourth ring he began to hope that she had finally died. Then he heard her voice. He softened his voice when he talked to her. He asked how she was feeling, how her day had been. Now that he had to accept that she was still alive, he wanted to make the conversation as brief as possible.

    He hung up the phone and sat with his hand resting on the receiver. She’s never going to die, he thought. She’ll never die unless I kill her.

    He remained sitting in the silent room. All he could hear was the roar of the sea and a lone moped driving past nearby. He got up from the sofa and walked over to the big balcony window facing the sea. The twilight was beautiful and rather moving. The beach below his huge estate was deserted. Everyone’s sitting in front of their TVs, he thought. Once they sat there and watched me throttle the news reporters. I was minister of justice back then. I should have been made foreign minister. But I never was.

    He shut the heavy curtains and checked carefully to see that there were no gaps. Even though he tried to live as anonymously as possible in this house located just east of Ystad, sometimes curiosity-seekers spied on him. Although it had been twenty-five years since he left office, he had not yet been entirely forgotten. He went out to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee from a thermos he had bought during an official visit to Italy in the late sixties. He vaguely recalled that he had been there to discuss increased efforts to prevent the spread of terrorism in Europe. All over his house there were reminders of the life he had once lived. He often thought he should throw them all away. But finally the mere effort seemed meaningless to him.

    He went back to the sofa with his coffee cup. With the remote he clicked off the TV He sat in the dark and thought about the day that had passed. In the morning he’d had a visit from a journalist from one of the big monthly magazines. She was working on a series about famous people and their lives in retirement. Why she had decided to visit him he never quite managed to figure out. She brought a photographer with her and they took pictures on the beach and inside the house. He had decided in advance that he would present the image of an elderly man marked by kindness and reconciliation. He described his present life as very happy. He lived in great seclusion so that he could meditate, and he let drop with feigned embarrassment that he was considering whether he ought to write his memoirs. The journalist, who was in her forties, had been impressed and full of humble respect. Afterwards he escorted her and the photographer to their car and waved as they drove off.

    With satisfaction he thought that he had avoided saying a single thing that was true during the entire interview. This was one of the few things that still held any interest for him. To deceive without being discovered. To spread pretense and illusion. After all his years as a politician he realized all that was left was the lie. The truth disguised as a lie or the lie veiled as truth.

    He slowly drank the rest of his coffee. His feeling of well-being grew. The evenings and nights were his best time. That’s when his thoughts sank beneath the surface, his thoughts about all that once had been and all that had been lost. But no one could rob him of the most important thing. The utmost secret, the one no one knew about but himself.

    Sometimes he imagined himself as an image in a mirror that was both concave and convex at the same time. As a person he had the same ambiguity. No one had ever seen anything but the surface, the capable jurist, the respected minister of justice, the kind retiree strolling along the beach in Skåne. No one would have guessed that he was his own double. He had greeted kings and presidents, he had bowed with a smile, but in his head he was thinking, if you only knew who I really am and what I think of you. When he stood in front of the TV cameras he always held that thought—if you only knew who I really am and what I think of you—foremost in his mind. But no one had ever understood it. His secret: that he hated and despised the party he represented, the opinions he defended, and most of the people he met. His secret would stay hidden until he died. He had seen through the world, identified all its frailties, observed the meaninglessness of existence. But no one knew about his insight, and that’s the way it would stay. He had never felt any need to share what he had seen and understood.

    He felt a growing pleasure about what was to come. The next evening his friends would come to the house just after nine in the black Mercedes with the tinted windows. They would drive straight into his garage and he would wait for their visit in the living room with the curtains drawn, just as they were now. He could feel his anticipation rise at once when he started to fantasize about what the girl they were delivering to him this time would look like. He had told them there had been far too many blondes lately. Some of them had also been much too old, over twenty. This time he wanted a younger one, preferably of mixed race. His friends would wait in the basement where he had installed a TV; he would take the girl with him to his bedroom. Before dawn they would be gone, and he would already be fantasizing about the girl they would bring the following week.

    The thought of the next day made him so excited that he got up from the sofa and went into his study. Before he turned on the light he drew the curtains. For a brief moment he thought he glimpsed the shadow of someone down on the beach. He took off his glasses and squinted. Sometimes late-night strollers would stop just below his property. In some cases it had even been necessary to call the police in Ystad and complain about the young people lighting bonfires on the beach and making noise.

    He had a good relationship with the Ystad police. They always came right away and drove off anyone who was disturbing him. He often thought that he never would have imagined the knowledge and contacts he would gain by being minister of justice. Not only had he learned to understand the special mentality that prevails inside the Swedish police corps, but he had methodically acquired friends at strategic points in the Swedish machinery of justice. Just as important were all the contacts he had made in the criminal world. There were intelligent criminals, individuals who worked alone as well as leaders of great crime syndicates, whom he had made his friends. Even though much had changed in the twenty-five years since he left office, he still enjoyed his old contacts. Especially the friends who saw to it that each week he had a visit from a girl of a suitable age.

    The shadow on the beach had been just his imagination. He straightened the curtains and unlocked one of the cabinets in the desk he had inherited from his father, an imposing professor of jurisprudence. He took out an expensive and beautifully decorated portfolio and opened it before him on the desk. Slowly, reverently, he paged through his collection of pornographic pictures from the earliest days of the art of photography. His oldest picture was a rarity, a daguerreotype from 1855 that he had bought in Paris. The picture showed a naked woman embracing a dog. His collection was renowned in the exclusive circle of men, unknown to the outside world, who shared his interest. His collection of pictures from the 1890s by Lecadre was surpassed only by the collection owned by an elderly steel magnate in the Ruhr. Slowly he leafed through the plastic-encased pages of the album. He lingered longest over the pages where the models were very young and one could see by their eyes that they were under the influence of drugs. He had often regretted that he himself had not begun to devote himself to photography earlier. Had he done so, he would today be in the possession of a unique collection.

    After he had gone through the album he locked it in the desk again. From his friends he had extracted a promise that upon his death they would offer the pictures to an antiquities dealer in Paris who specialized in the sale of such items. The money would be donated to a scholarship fund for young law students he had already established, one which would not be announced until after his death.

    He switched off the desk lamp and remained sitting in the dark room. The sound of the surf was very faint. Once again he thought he heard a moped passing nearby. He still had a hard time imagining his own death, even though he was already over seventy years old. On two occasions, during trips to the United States, he had managed to be present anonymously at executions, the first by electric chair, the second in the gas chamber, which was already rather rare back then. It had been a curiously pleasurable experience to watch people being killed. But his own death he could not imagine. He left the study and poured a little glass of liqueur from the bar cabinet in the living room. The hour was already approaching midnight. A short walk down to the sea was all that remained before he went to bed. He put on a jacket in the entryway, slipped his feet into a pair of worn clogs, and left the house.

    Outside it was dead calm. His house was so isolated that he could not see the lights from any of his neighbors’ homes. The cars on the road to Kåseberga roared by in the distance. He followed the path that led through the garden and down to the locked gate that let him out onto the beach. To his annoyance he discovered that the lamp that sat on a pole next to the gate was burned out. The beach awaited him. He fished out his keys and unlocked the gate. He walked the short distance to the beach and stopped at the water line. The sea was still. Far out on the horizon he saw the lights of a vessel heading west. He unbuttoned his fly and pissed in the water as he continued to fantasize about the visit he would have the next day.

    Although he heard nothing, he suddenly knew that someone was standing behind him. He stiffened, and terror seized hold of him. Then he spun around.

    The man standing there looked like an animal. Apart from a pair of shorts he was naked. With an instantaneous, hysterical dread the old man looked into the other man’s face. He couldn’t tell if it was deformed or hidden behind a mask. In one hand the man held an axe. In his confusion he thought that the hand around the shaft of the axe was very small, that the man reminded him of a dwarf.

    He screamed and started to run, back up toward the garden gate.

    He died the instant the edge of the axe severed his spine, right below the shoulders. And he never felt how the man who was perhaps an animal knelt down and slit an opening in his forehead and then with one violent wrench ripped most of the hair and skin from the top of his skull.

    The time was just past midnight.

    It was Tuesday, the 21st of June.

    A lone moped started up somewhere nearby. A moment later the sound of the motor died away.

    Everything was once again very still.

    Chapter Two

    Around noon on the 21st of June, Kurt Wallander walked out of the police station in Ystad. So that no one would notice his departure, he walked out through the garage entrance, got into his car, and drove down to the harbor. Since the day was warm he had left his sport coat hanging on his desk chair. Anyone looking for him in the next few hours would assume he must be somewhere in the building. Wallander parked by the theater. Then he walked out on the inner pier and sat down on the bench next to the red-painted hut of the Sea Rescue Service. He had taken along one of his notebooks. When he was ready to start writing he discovered that he hadn’t brought a pen. Annoyed, his first impulse was to throw the pad into the harbor and forget the whole thing. But he realized this was impossible. His colleagues would never forgive him.

    They were the ones who, despite his protests, had appointed him to make a speech on behalf of all of them at three o’clock when they were going to thank Björk, who that same day was leaving his post as Ystad chief of police.

    Wallander had never made a speech in his life. The closest he had come were the innumerable press conferences he had been obligated to hold during various criminal investigations.

    But how did you thank an outgoing chief of police? What did you actually thank him for? Did they have anything at all to be thankful for? Wallander would have preferred to talk about his uneasiness and anxiety about the vast, seemingly unplanned reorganizations and cutbacks to which the police force was increasingly subjected.

    He had left the police station so he could think through in peace what he was going to say. He’d sat at his kitchen table until late the night before without getting anywhere. But now he was actually forced to do it. In less than three hours they would gather and present their farewell gift to Björk, who would start work the next day in Malmö as head of the county board of immigrant affairs. He stood up from the bench and walked along the pier to the harbor cafe. The fishing boats rocked slowly in their moorings. Wallander absentmindedly recalled that once, seven years ago, he had been involved in fishing a body out of the harbor. But he pushed away the image. The speech he had to make to Björk was more important right now. One of the waitresses loaned him a pen. He sat down at a table outside with a cup of coffee and forced himself to write a few words to Björk. By one o’clock he had put together half a page. He looked at it gloomily, and he knew it was the best he could do. He motioned the waitress over, who came and refilled his cup.

    Summer seems to be taking its time getting here, said Wallander.

    Maybe it won’t show up at all, replied the waitress.

    Aside from the impossible speech for Björk, Wallander was in a good mood. In a few weeks he would be going on vacation. He had a lot to be happy about. It had been a long, tiresome winter. He knew that he was in great need of a rest.

    At three o’clock they gathered in the lunchroom of the police station and Wallander made his speech to Björk. Svedberg gave him a casting rod as a present, and Ann-Britt Höglund gave him flowers. Wallander managed to embellish his scanty speech on the spur of the moment by recounting a few of his escapades with Björk. There was great amusement when he recalled the time when they had both tumbled into a pool of liquid manure after a scaffold collapsed. Then everyone drank coffee and ate cake. In his thank-you speech, Björk wished his successor, a woman named Lisa Holgersson, good luck. She had just come from one of the bigger police districts in Smaland and would take over at the end of the summer. For the time being Hansson would be the acting chief of police in Ystad. When the ceremony was over and Wallander had returned to his office, Martinsson knocked on his half-open door.

    That was a great speech, he said. I didn’t know you could do that sort of thing.

    I can’t, said Wallander. It was a lousy speech. You know it as well as I do.

    Martinsson sat down carefully in Wallander’s broken-down visitor’s chair.

    I wonder how it’ll go with a woman chief, he said.

    Why shouldn’t it go well? replied Wallander. You should worry instead about what’s going to happen with all these cutbacks.

    That’s exactly why I came, said Martinsson. There’s a rumor going around that the Ystad staff is going to be cut back on Saturday and Sunday nights.

    Wallander looked at Martinsson skeptically.

    That won’t work, of course, he said. Who’s going to guard the suspects we might be holding?

    Rumor has it that they’re going to take bids for that job from private security companies.

    Wallander gave Martinsson a quizzical look.

    Security companies?

    That’s what I heard.

    Wallander shook his head. Martinsson got up.

    I thought you ought to know about it, he said. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to the police force?

    No, said Wallander. ‘And you should take that as the complete truth."

    Martinsson lingered in the office.

    Was there something else?

    Martinsson took a piece of paper out of his pocket.

    As you know, the World Cup has started. 2—2 in the game against Cameroon. You bet 5—0 in favor of Cameroon. With this score, you came in last.

    How could I come in last? Either I bet right or wrong, didn’t I?

    We run statistics that show where we are in relation to everyone else.

    Good Lord! What’s the point of that?

    A patrol officer was the only one who picked 2—2, said Martinsson, ignoring Wallander’s question. Now for the next match. Sweden against Russia.

    Wallander was totally uninterested in soccer. On the other hand, he had occasionally gone to see Ystad’s handball team play, which had several times been ranked one of the best in Sweden. Lately, though, he couldn’t avoid noticing how the entire country seemed to be directing all its attention toward a single thing. The World Cup. He couldn’t turn on the TV or open a newspaper without being deluged by endless speculations about how it was going to go for the Swedish team. At the same time he knew that he couldn’t really avoid taking part in the soccer pool. They would think he was arrogant. He took his wallet out of his back pocket.

    How much?

    A hundred kronor. Same as last time.

    He handed the bill to Martinsson, who checked him off on his list.

    Don’t I have to guess the score?

    Sweden against Russia. What do you think?

    4—4, said Wallander.

    It’s pretty rare to make that many goals in soccer, Martinsson said, surprised. That sounds more like an ice hockey score.

    All right, let’s say 3—1 for Russia, said Wallander. Is that all right?

    Martinsson wrote it down.

    Maybe we can take the Brazil match while we’re at it, Martinsson continued.

    3—0 for Brazil, said Wallander quickly.

    You don’t have very high expectations for Sweden, said Martinsson.

    Not when it comes to soccer, anyway, replied Wallander, handing him another hundred.

    After Martinsson left, Wallander thought about what he had been told. But then he dismissed the idea in annoyance. He would find out soon enough what was true and what wasn’t. It was already four-thirty. Wallander pulled over a folder of investigative material about an organized crime ring exporting stolen cars to the former Eastern-bloc countries. He had been working on the investigation for several months. So far the police had only succeeded in tracking down parts of the extensive operation. He knew that it would haunt him for many months to come. During his leave, Svedberg would take over. He had a strong suspicion that very little would happen while he was gone.

    Ann-Britt Höglund knocked on the door and walked in. She had a black baseball cap on her head.

    How do I look? she asked.

    Like a tourist, replied Wallander.

    This is what the new police uniform caps are going to look like, she said. Imagine the word POLICE above the bill. I’ve seen pictures of it.

    They’ll never get one of those on my head, said Wallander. I guess I should be glad I’m not a cop in uniform anymore.

    Someday we might discover that Bjork was a really good chief, she said. I think what you said in there was great.

    I know the speech wasn’t any good, said Wallander, starting to feel annoyed. But all of you are responsible for having the bad judgment to pick me.

    Höglund stood up and looked out the window. She had managed to live up to the reputation that preceded her when she came to Ystad the year before. At the police academy she had revealed a great aptitude for police work, which had been developed even more. She had been able to fill part of the void left by Rydberg’s death a few years back. Rydberg was the detective who had taught Wallander most of what he knew, and sometimes Wallander thought it was his responsibility to guide Höglund in the same way.

    How’s it going with the cars? she asked.

    They keep getting stolen, said Wallander. This organization seems to have an incredible number of branches.

    Can we manage to punch a hole in it? she asked.

    We’ll crack it, replied Wallander. Sooner or later. There’ll be a lull for a few months. Then it’ll start up again.

    But it’ll never end?

    Right, it’ll never end. Because Ystad is located where it is. Two hundred kilometers from here, across the Baltic, there’s an endless number of people who want what we’ve got. The only problem is they don’t have any money to pay for it.

    I wonder how much stolen property is shipped out with every single ferry, she mused.

    You don’t want to know, said Wallander.

    Together they went and got some coffee. Höglund was supposed to start her vacation that week. Wallander had understood that she was going to spend it in Ystad, since her husband, a traveling machinery installer with the whole world as his workplace, was in Saudi Arabia.

    What are you going to do? she asked when they started talking about their upcoming leaves.

    I’m going to Denmark, to Skagen, said Wallander.

    With the woman from Riga? Höglund wondered with a smile.

    Wallander raised his eyebrows in surprise.

    How do you know about her?

    Oh, everybody does, she replied. Didn’t you know? You might call it the result of an ongoing internal investigation, among us cops.

    Wallander was truly astonished. He had never told anyone about Baiba, whom he had met during a criminal investigation some years before. She was the widow of a murdered Latvian policeman. She had been in Ystad over Christmas almost six months ago. During the Easter holiday Wallander had visited her in Riga. But he had never spoken about her or introduced her to any of his colleagues. Now he suddenly wondered why he hadn’t. Even though their relationship was fragile, she had dragged him out of the melancholy that had marked his life since his divorce from Mona.

    All right, he said. Yes, we’re going to Denmark together. Then I’m going to spend the rest of the summer with my father.

    And Linda?

    She called a week ago and said she was taking a theater class in Visby.

    I thought she was going to be a furniture upholsterer?

    I did too. But now she’s gotten the idea that she’s going to do some kind of theater performance with a girlfriend of hers.

    That sounds exciting, don’t you think?

    Wallander nodded dubiously.

    I hope she comes here in July, he said. I haven’t seen her in a long time.

    They parted outside Wallander’s door.

    Drop by and say hello this summer, she said. With or without the woman from Riga. With or without your daughter.

    Her name is Baiba, said Wallander.

    He promised he’d come by and visit.

    After the conversation with Ann-Britt he sat for a good hour bent over the papers on his desk. Twice he called the police in Göteborg in vain, looking for a detective who was working on the same investigation from a different angle. At quarter to six he closed the folders and stood up. He had decided to go out to eat. He pinched his stomach and noticed that he was still losing weight. Baiba had complained that he was too fat. After that he hadn’t had any problem eating less. On several occasions he had also squeezed into a sweatsuit and gone jogging, even though he found it boring.

    He put on his jacket and decided to write a letter to Baiba that evening. Just as he was about to leave the office, the telephone rang. For a moment he couldn’t decide whether to let it ring or not. Then he went back to his desk and picked up the receiver.

    It was Martinsson.

    Nice speech you made, said Martinsson. Björk seemed genuinely moved.

    You already said that, said Wallander. What do you want? I’m on my way home.

    I just got a phone call that was a little strange, said Martinsson. I thought I ought to confer with you.

    Wallander waited impatiently for him to go on.

    It was a farmer calling from a farm out near Marsvinsholm. He claimed that there was a woman acting strange out in his rapeseed field.

    Is that all?

    Yes.

    A woman acting strange out in a rapeseed field? What was she doing?

    If I understood him correctly, she wasn’t doing anything. The peculiar thing was that she was out in the rapeseed in the first place.

    Wallander had to think a moment before he replied.

    Send out a squad car. It sounds like something for them.

    The problem is that all the units seem to be busy right now. There were two auto accidents almost simultaneously. One by the road into Svarte, the other outside the Hotel Continental.

    Serious?

    No major injuries. But there seems to be quite a mess.

    They can drive out to Marsvinsholm when they have time, can’t they?

    That farmer seemed pretty upset. I don’t know any better way to explain it. If I didn’t have to pick up my kids I’d go out there myself.

    All right, I can do it, said Wallander. I’ll meet you in the hall and get the name and directions.

    A few minutes later Wallander drove off from the police station. He turned left and took the road toward Malmö at the roundabout. Next to him on the seat was the note Martinsson had written for him. The farmer’s name was Salomonsson, and Wallander knew the road to take. When he got out onto E65 he rolled down the window. The yellow rapeseed fields billowed on both sides of the road. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt as good as he did now. He stuck in a cassette of The Marriage of Figaro with Barbara Hendricks singing Susanna, and he thought about meeting Baiba in Copenhagen. When he reached the side road to Marsvinsholm he turned left, past the castle and the castle church, and turned left again. He glanced at Martinsson’s directions and swung onto a narrow road that led straight across the fields. In the distance he caught a glimpse of the sea.

    Salomonsson’s house was an old, well-preserved Skåne farmhouse. Wallander got out of the car and looked around. Everywhere he looked were yellow rapeseed fields. The door of the house opened. The man standing on the steps was very old. He had a pair of binoculars in his hand. Wallander thought that he must have been imagining the whole thing. All too often, lonely old folks out in the country were deluded into calling the police by their own imaginations. He walked over to the steps and nodded.

    Kurt Wallander from the Ystad police, he introduced himself.

    The man on the steps was unshaven and his feet were stuck into a pair of beat-up clogs.

    Edvin Salomonsson, said the man, stretching out his skinny hand.

    Tell me what happened, said Wallander.

    The man pointed out at the rapeseed field that lay to the right of the house.

    I discovered her this morning, he began. I get up early. She was already there at five. At first I thought it was a deer. Then I looked through the binoculars and saw that it was a woman.

    What was she doing? asked Wallander.

    She was standing there.

    That’s all?

    She was standing and staring.

    Staring at what?

    How should I know?

    Wallander sighed to himself. Probably the old man had seen a deer. Then his imagination had taken over.

    You don’t know who she is? he asked.

    I’ve never seen her before, replied the man. If I knew who she was, why would I call the police?

    Wallander nodded.

    You saw her the first time early this morning, he went on. But you didn’t call the police until late this afternoon?

    I wouldn’t want to put you out for no reason, the man answered simply. I assume the police have plenty to do.

    You saw her in your binoculars, said Wallander. She was out in the rapeseed field and you had never seen her before. Then what did you do?

    I got dressed and went out to tell her to leave. She was trampling down the rapeseed.

    Then what happened?

    She ran.

    Ran?

    She hid in the field. Hunkered down so I couldn’t see her. First I thought she was gone. Then I discovered her again in the binoculars. It happened over and over. Finally I got tired of it and called you.

    When did you see her last?

    Just before I called.

    What was she doing then?

    Standing there staring.

    Wallander glanced out at the field. All he could see was the billowing rapeseed.

    The officer you spoke with said that you seemed uneasy, said Wallander.

    Well, what’s somebody doing standing in a rapeseed field? There’s got to be something odd about that.

    Wallander thought that he ought to end the conversation as quickly as possible. It was clear to him now that the old man had imagined the whole thing. He decided to contact Social Services the next day.

    There’s not really much I can do, said Wallander. She’s probably gone by now. And in that case, there’s nothing to worry about.

    She’s not gone at all, said Salomonsson. I can see her right now.

    Wallander spun around. He followed Salomonsson’s pointing finger.

    The woman was about fifty meters out in the rapeseed field. Wallander could see that her hair was very dark. It stood out sharply against the yellow field.

    I’ll go talk to her, said Wallander. Wait here.

    He took a pair of boots out of the trunk of his car. Then he walked toward the rapeseed field with a feeling of unreality about the whole situation. The woman was standing completely still, watching him. When he got closer he saw that not only did she have long black hair, but her skin was dark too. He stopped when he reached the edge of the field. He raised one hand and tried to wave her over. She continued to stand utterly motionless. Even though she was still quite far from him and the billowing rapeseed hid her face every so often, he had the impression that she was quite beautiful. He shouted to her to come toward him. When she still didn’t move he took a step into the field. At once she was gone. It happened so fast that she looked like a spooked animal. At the same time he could feel himself getting angry. He kept walking out into the field, looking in every direction. When he caught sight of her again she had moved into the eastern corner of the field. So that she wouldn’t get away, he started running. She moved very quickly and he could feel himself getting out of breath. When he came as close as twenty meters or so, they were out in the middle of the rapeseed field. He shouted at her to stop.

    Police! he yelled. Freeze!

    He started walking toward her. Then he stopped short. And everything happened very fast. She raised a plastic jug over her head and started pouring a colorless liquid over her hair, her face, and her body. He had a fleeting thought that she must have been carrying it the whole time. And now he could tell that she was terrified. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring straight at him.

    Police! he shouted again. I just want to talk to you.

    At the same moment a smell of gasoline wafted toward him. Suddenly she had a flickering cigarette lighter in one hand, which she touched to her hair. Wallander cried out as she burst into flame like a torch. Paralyzed, he watched her lurch around the field as the fire sizzled and blazed over her body. Wallander could hear himself screaming. But the woman on fire was silent. Afterwards he couldn’t remember hearing her scream at all.

    When he tried to run up to her the entire field exploded in flames. He was suddenly surrounded by smoke and fire. He held his hands in front of his face and ran, without knowing which direction he was heading. When he reached the edge of the field he tripped and tumbled into the ditch. He turned around and saw her one last time before she fell over and vanished from his sight. She was holding her arms up as if appealing for mercy.

    The rapeseed field was burning.

    Somewhere behind him he could hear Salomonsson wailing.

    Wallander got to his feet. His legs were shaking.

    Then he turned away and threw up.

    Chapter Three

    Afterward Wallander would remember the burning girl in the rapeseed field the way you remember, with the greatest reluctance, a distant nightmare you’d rather forget. Even though he seemed to maintain at least an outward sense of calm for the entire evening and far into the night, later he could recall nothing but irrelevant details. Martinsson, Hansson, and especially Ann-Britt Höglund had been astonished by his impassiveness. But they couldn’t see through the shield he had set up to protect himself Inside him there was devastation like a house that had collapsed.

    He got back to his apartment just after two in the morning. Only then, when he sat down on his couch, still wearing his dirty clothes and muddy boots, did the shield crumble. He poured himself a glass of whisky; the doors of his balcony stood open and let in the summer night, and he started to cry like a baby.

    The girl who had burned herself to death had been a child. She reminded him of his own daughter Linda.

    During all his years as a policeman he had learned to be prepared for whatever might await him when he arrived at a place where a person had met a violent and sudden death. He had seen people who had hanged themselves, stuck shotgun barrels in their mouths, or blown themselves to bits. Somehow he had learned to endure what he saw and then push it aside. But it never worked when there were children or young people involved. Then he was just as defenseless as when he had first started working as a cop. He knew that most cops reacted the same way. When children or young people died violently, for no reason, the defenses erected out of habit collapsed. And that’s how it would be as long as he continued working as a police officer.

    But by the time the shield crumbled he had put behind him the introductory phase of the investigation, which had been conducted in an exemplary manner. With traces of vomit clinging to his mouth he had run up to Salomonsson, who was incredulously watching his rapeseed field burn, and asked where the telephone was. Since Salomonsson didn’t seem to understand the question, or maybe didn’t even hear it, he shoved the old man aside and dashed into the house. There he encountered the acrid smell of a life lived by an unwashed old man, and in the hallway he found the telephone. He dialed 90-000, and the operator who took the call later claimed that he had sounded quite calm when he described what had happened and called

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